From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V8 #316 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, August 18 1999 Volume 08 : Number 316 Today's Subjects: ----------------- ars gratia artis [Michael R Godwin ] p-u-n-k-a...low-fi songs are great... ["Andrew D. Simchik" ] ...and now, the WEBSITE! [hal brandt ] Re: separation [Michael R Godwin ] Monstrous Vermin [The Great Quail ] Sorry! [The Great Quail ] re: art? [Stephen Buckalew ] Art is a lie. . . . [The Great Quail ] Trade??? [Michael Brage ] My art is better than your art, Renaissance notwithstanding [DDerosa5@aol] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 13:19:49 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: ars gratia artis I don't agree that art is about intentional communication. Didn't Kafka want all his stuff destroyed? He wrote it for himself, because his muse, or daemon, demanded it. It was only because thingy lied to him and published the novels that we have them today. Big influence on Peake, big influence on Beckett, all about life without meaning, one of the central themes of the 20th Century. An important distinction which I haven't seen in this lengthy discussion is the difference between court art and folk art. Most of the greats (Leonardo, Bach) worked for rich, educated patrons who were competing with one another to hire the best painters and musicians available. Patrons like Frederick the Great were sufficiently well up on the subject to hold a critical discussion on how and why one work achieved its objectives better than another. This made it difficult for charlatans to get jobs or palm off inferior work on their patrons (I'm not saying it couldn't be done, I'm saying it was difficult to do). Until universal education arrived (1880s in the UK), folk art was a completely different kettle of fish: words and music were transmitted orally, so the tunes had to be memorable and the words had to rhyme or have some other mnemonic device. Techniques for folk painting and sculpture couldn't be learned from textbooks, they had to be passed down from master to apprentice. The opening up of the world in the 20th Century has changed the rules completely. Books, concerts and exhibitions have made people more and more aware of the products of other cultures, so art has ceased to be a one-dimensional European monopoly. Artists and composers have increasingly drawn on folk art and folk music for inspiration. Picasso was able to study and draw on works of folk art from Africa and Polynesia. Jazz, which was originally a pure folk form, was picked up on by the pop music industry and songs such as Tiger Rag became big hits. Large scale distribution of sheet music led to the widespread performance of the first pop songs (e.g. "After the ball is over"). Professional songwriters like Irving Berlin started to write songs in the jazz idiom, such as 'Alexander's ragtime band'. Soon you have serious jazz composers like Scott Joplin and George Gershwin, whose aim is to make lasting 'classical-style' works using the new forms. But now the public are the judge of quality, not the educated elite. I'm not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing, but that the results are different. In general, the public do not have the sophisticated critical standards of the elite (fegs obviously excepted here). Who was it said "No-one ever lost money by underestimating the taste of the public?". There is a tendency for works which are highly sentimental, or melodramatic, or flash, or gimmicky, to be successful - anything which achieves a quick, immediate response, rather than work which requires more effort or thought to appreciate. As a reaction to this, 'serious' artists and musicians become suspicious of popular success and begin to value inaccessibility as a virtue, which it isn't. - - Mike Godwin PS Two more protest songs: 'Oxford Town' by Bob Dylan 'He's a rebel' by the Crystals ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 06:41:15 -0700 (PDT) From: "Andrew D. Simchik" Subject: p-u-n-k-a...low-fi songs are great... > From: "Partridge, John" > If no, then "art" doesn't mean a hell > of a lot, > does it? Like most concepts that are extremely difficult to define, it does and it doesn't. Also, like most such concepts ("pornography" is another that comes to mind), it's often used most actively to demonize. "Porn" is used to slam words and pictures that turn people on but make us uncomfortable. "Art" is used to exclude words, images, objects, performances, and so on that turn other people on but not us. My opinion, which I held before this discussion, and still hold now, is that art is something you intend to create, and your intention makes it art. An excellent Simpsons episode is not art if its writers and animators don't think of themselves as creating art. A Cow and Chicken episode *is* art if its writers and animators think of themselves as creating art. This in no way prevents the Simpsons episode from being superior in every regard to the Cow and Chicken episode; my notion (which I see is shared by several others on the list) of art does not require that the art be any good. A master carpenter may have just designed the most beautiful chair in the world, but if he thinks of himself as a craftsman rather than an artist, I'm not likely to complain on the grounds that his work is too *good* to be called mere "craft." On the contrary, he's struck a blow for craft as superior to art, at least in that instance. A master chef or a sophomoric wag may chop a hot dog into bits, garnish and relish it, and serve it on a plate calling it "art." Does this make it art? Sure. Is it any good? Whether the chef or the wag made it, it probably still sucks. I find that it really complicates conversation to consider the word "art" a mark of quality rather than intent. That's good enough reason for me. One more thing: "art" is one of those words it's hard to use without an accompanying verb like "to be." Try using what they call "E-prime"* when talking about art, and I'll bet you find yourself talking a lot more about intention (the artist's) and perception (yours) than about some transcendent quality somehow bound in the paint and canvas (or whatever) itself. > I guess but that's beside the point: intent matters not a > wit; the > result is what matters. With the chef and the wag, one apparently intends to create a striking and delicious and incredible meal, while the other is basically making a joke. Their intent does not change the quality of the art they've produced. But whether or not it is "art" *does* depend on the intent. You may not know whether Yeats intended to write timeless and magnificent verse, or whether he was just composing doggerel on napkins to pass the time, but you can be reasonably sure he was intending to write poetry. The latter intent is sufficient for it to be art, whether you go on to find it magnificent or awful. > At the risk of trivializing your point, I'll try an > analogy: Are you > saying that punk music was an important statement that > needed to be > made at the time to free popular music from the > straitjacket of 70's > corporate rock? That's a historical question and not an artistic one. I was only a toddler at the time, so I can't say, but I imagine that the punks didn't think of it as a "statement" in that sense (the term connotes a response, a posture, to me, not a revolution, and when people say they're doing something to make a "statement" they usually mean they're sincere on the macro level but not the micro). I imagine that they were fed up with said straitjacket, and had a different vision of the kind of music they wanted to make, so they did it. They probably hoped it would catch on and bring down the dinosaurs, but the sense of history you're invoking there somehow rings false to me. These paradigm shifts result partly from individuals trying to subvert the status quo, I'm sure, but also partly from a real sense they have that the kind of art they want to make is valuable and worthwhile in its own right. Has it been said ad infinitum that grunge was punk for the 90's, a reaction to the corporate pop (Paula Abdul), corporate hair-metal (Skid Row), and bland whitebread college rock (the Judybats) that turned the late 80's and very early 90's into a musical cream of mushroom soup? For the record, I enjoyed all three genres at the time (the golden years of 120 Minutes I've mentioned before), and I really don't like grunge at all, but I do think it was necessary. We didn't need much more of that soup. > If so, I would say that the historians > have lots of > hard evidence of what punk succeeded and failed at and > who knows, > maybe what punk rock did was even important. But it > doesn't make the > music sound any better. Some people really like it, for many of the same reasons that the punks wanted to make it. This is what I meant above; it's not *just* about being conceptual and wanting to shift paradigms. That's the historical view. Rothko and Pollock presumably found aesthetic value in what they were doing; certainly many people since then have done so. To intend something to be art you have to believe in it as art to a certain extent. What made punk good was not the conceptual shift but the qualities absent from music at the time which led to the conceptual shift. Drew * The English language, minus forms of "to be" and other verbs in that family. === Andrew D. Simchik, schnopia@yahoo.com _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 07:13:55 PDT From: "Alex Wettreich" Subject: Deni in NYC tonight Emerging from digested lurkdom to inform all you New Yorkers out there: Deni Bonet is scheduled to play tonight at Arlene Grocery. One Mr. Robyn Hitchcock happens to be in town (MABD is tonight at Tramps) and methinks the possibility is too good to pass up. Plus, it's free, which MABD decidedly isn't. Ms. Bonet is supposed to be the third act of five, although I haven't called to verify times, etc. http://newyork.citysearch.com/E/V/NYCNY/0000/90/00/ Cheers, Alex _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 08:40:41 -0600 From: hal brandt Subject: ...and now, the WEBSITE! http://fingerthing.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 15:36:35 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: separation > For most of the 90s, Robyn has been pushing towards a simpler and sparser > style both musically and lyrically. I haven't heard JfS yet (despite kind offers) but I know exactly what is meant by the difference between all the instruments sounding individually and all the instruments blending into a whole. In my view, a record where you notice all the instruments separately is one where the arranger or producer hasn't been tough enough with the musicians. The reason that I like Rolling Stones records (certainly up to 'Exile' and sometimes beyond) is precisely because you only hear a noise with all the instruments meshing together. You sometimes get this with the Velvets and Spector as well. I fear that all these 'leaving rock'n'roll behind' statements may mean that Hitchcock is getting a little twee and self-conscious. I await the album with interest! > I cut my musical teeth on The Move and so have been a bit twisted ever > since. - - Mike 'Lock me up and throw the key away" Godwin PS Surely it's compression that 'blends' the sound, not reverb? Maybe it's a bit of both - slap some more on and hope for the best, I say! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 10:39:33 -0400 From: The Great Quail Subject: Monstrous Vermin Mike, You said, >I don't agree that art is about intentional communication. Didn't Kafka >want all his stuff destroyed? He wrote it for himself, because his muse, >or daemon, demanded it. It was only because thingy lied to him and >published the novels that we have them today. Big influence on Peake, big >influence on Beckett, all about life without meaning, one of the central >themes of the 20th Century. Kafka wanted *most* of his stuff destroyed. He only thought a few of his works were "good enough" to be widely read. His friend and fellow write Max Brod did not carry out his orders, so as a result we have some excellent Kafka stuff and a whole lot of meaningless drivel as well. And not only did Kafka influence Peake and Beckett, but Borges and Garcia Marquez as well -- in a weird way, he and Faulkner were the godfathers of modern Latin American fiction! Kafka was a weird fellow. Very nervous. I think the Coen brothers should make a movie about him. (Don't tell Eddie that! I don't know whether I'm more afraid that he'll disagree with me, or start writing the script now!) Cheers, - --Quail ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Great Quail, Keeper of the Libyrinth: http://www.libyrinth.com "Countlessness of livestories have netherfallen by this plage, flick as flowflakes, litters from aloft, like a waast wizzard all of whirlworlds. Now are all tombed to the mound, isges to isges, erde from erde . . . (Stoop) if you are abcedminded, to this claybook, what curious of signs (please stoop) in this allaphbed! Can you rede (since We and Thou had it out already) its world? . . . Speak to us of Emailia!" --James Joyce, Finnegans Wake ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 10:52:27 -0400 From: The Great Quail Subject: Sorry! That last post was meant for Mike alone, not the whole list. Not a big deal, but I did expose my Eddie paranoia, and now I am afraid he'll send a large wrestler to move in next door. . . . - --Quail ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 11:03:50 -0400 From: Stephen Buckalew Subject: re: art? I'm not a college professor, so I don't feel qualified to discuss this, but: >Works created for sheer entertainment are not usually considered art because the >viewer is not invited to interact with the piece. perhaps this is true, but I would say if someone is viewing/listening and thinking or feeling about something (which is how I'd approach a painting in a museum or a piece of music), they are "interacting" with the work. >Art is created with intention and invites reaction in the viewer. I'm not disagreeing, but it's interesting how so much of intention is subconscious and probably can't accurately be defined by the "creator" of the work. I suppose the viewer could include the artist themselves. S.B. **************************************************************************** "...everythings all on...it's rosy...it's a beautiful day!"--Syd Barrett **************************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 11:45:54 -0400 From: The Great Quail Subject: Art is a lie. . . . "Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth." - --Pablo Picasso And the Great Partridge/Quail debate continues . . . to peck at seeds, or not to peck at seeds? John says, >Well I honestly envy people like you. For a nominal fee, I'll let you be me for a few days! >But tell me this, is there *any* >category of alleged artistic expression that you would draw the line >at and say, "sorry, haircut, that ain't art"? If yes, draw some >boundaries for me. If no, then "art" doesn't mean a hell of a lot, >does it? I think that art is not a single thing, it is a relationship between the work, the individual viewer, and a wider audience of viewers known variously as "posterity" or "audience" or "public." At times, that relationship may also include the artists him/herself, and that factors in intentions. At other times, it may not include the artist. "Art" is a concept that lies somewhere in the space created by those dynamic relationships. And since the individual viewer is a key aspect, the definition of ART will always be partially subjective, but always an interesting topic of discussion! >I guess but that's beside the point: intent matters not a wit; the >result is what matters. To *you,* perhaps. And that's fine -- many people, including on occasion myself, think that the work itself is all that matters. (James Joyce, for instance, and LJ Lindhurst.) But to some artists, the intent is very important. I don't suppose the Nazi social realists would be thrilled to have their works interpreted as fascist imaginings and racial paranoia; nor do I think that Beethoven would have been particularly thrilled to have the Nazis hold up his Ode to Joy as an example of Aryan purity. Although, there can be a certain comic effect when the artist's intent is unknown or misread or even glossed over by enthusiasm for the work itself. I mean, when the Vatican hangs one of Francis Bacon's "Popes" on the wall, that's a bit of a curiosity -- like when my church's organist would play Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra," totally ignorant of the fact it was written as a paean to Nietzsche, a veritable Anti-Christ. Heh heh . . . Archie Bunker -- satirical clown or working class hero? >I have no idea what Yeats meant to do with >the poems he wrote; all I know is what I get out of them and they're >magnificent. I have *full* knowledge of what *I* meant to do with >the poems *I* wrote but your esthetic response is and ought to be >entirely independent of that. We *can* agree on that, can't we? yes, I do agree, but I think that's not the whole picture. For you, maybe; but not for me, and not for everyone. And as I stated earlier, defining art may be a partially social act. >Don't know this Duchamp fellow but I think Rodin is the bee's knees. Marcel Duchamp was a leader of the Dadaist movement. A very skilled artists and painter in his own right, he often challenged the art world by showing that celebrity status was often more important than the work itself, and that art was what a society defined it. A classic example was his bicycle wheel mounted on a stool -- it was art, no, if it was a Duchamp and it was in a museum? This was taken to an extreme when he framed a urinal and signed it with a pseudonym, passing it off as "sculpture." Yes, it was a conceptual raspberry, but one that mocked the establishment rather than the viewer . . . for me, I can look at his works and laugh *with* him. I guess I should answer your question . . . do I draw the line? The answer is, no, I can't draw the line. If Artist X shits in a can and calls it art, and Patron Y pays 1000 dollars for it, it's art to them. To me? It's shit in a can. It is not art on a personal level, and I think that I can make some criticisms of it that would be fairly valid, saying that it is *bad* art. But I anticipate that some of you feel that by nature, ART *has* to be good or it isn't art. I disagree. In my view, art is a relationship, and when all factors are balanced harmoniously it is good art. Hell, I don't really *like* Mondrian or Dickens or Brahms; but I won't say there are not art, and enough well-balanced people dig them and make a good case for them that I'll even say they are good art . . . but not to my personal taste. I really can tell you why I don't like them, but, unlike the can of shit, I can't really muster up any valid or meaningful critique other than, "This bores me" or "This does not engage me." >Well some people love pedestals and some people hate them. I love >pedestals but not because it gives me a better crapping vantage point. >Nothing would please me more than to be living in the Renaissance >and reflect with pleasure on how quite good the music, painting, and >poetry all are. Heh heh . . . and I would be going CRAZY there, waiting desperately for the Romantic Era to begin! >All of your remarks are informative and well-intentioned and I hope >I haven't crossed the line either. No, not at all! >> So you are saying that art can criticize everything but itself? Or >> are you saying that art can serve no critical function? >Hmm. So can a parody be so well written that it becomes art? I would >say no. A satire, possibly, but not a parody. And I would say, "yes." A parody -- a *good* parody -- must so clearly understand the essence of the subject it is mocking that on one small level it actually transcends the subject. There is an art to that. Of course, because a parody is so limited in scope, so focused, and so dependent upon other factors to exist -- is the audience familiar with the original? Have they a sense of humor that works *with* the parody? Etc., that I think a parody has a much less likely chance at ever becoming a great work of art. But as I established, I believe in various levels or gradations of quality in art. "Bored of the Rings" is a brilliant parody, but it will never become a greater work than "Lord of the Rings." Duchamp can paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa, but. . . . >I think an accomplished >artist could certainly apply his talents toward the end of artistic >criticism and the result would likely be very uh, artful. But I don't >believe it would be art. I'm flailing with the hypothetical here - do >you have a specific example to ground it? Sure. Read Roland Barthes "Mythologies," or almost any Derrida. These are very much works of literature in of themselves. Or Nietzsche's work -- there is a poetry to his critique, a pith and a grace, that raises it to art. Or what about TS Eliot? He was a brilliant poet and a brilliant critic. James Joyce wrote some criticism that has such a Joycean flavor it reads like a missing link between Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. And Borges, one of my favorites, his criticism is often a springboard for some of his best writing. Now, again, I think criticism suffers from some of the same things that limit the artfulness of parody -- it is focused, very specific, and doesn't translate well from the specific to the general, which I think is one of the yardsticks of Great Art. Stravinsky's writings about music will never be as significant as his music; and Eliot's criticism will never reach as broad an audience or mean as much today as "The Wasteland." My argument is for merely accepting this as art, not necessarily placing it up there with GREAT ART. >Well not just grad school. Lots of journalists like to talk about it, >preferably by the column-inch. I don't understand what you mean by >"undermining a clear view". I think you are prejudiced about art criticism, and that prejudice is slanting your argument and maybe preventing you from really opening up to some of my arguments. >No question in mind Oscar Wilde was an artist and I don't see how >I've robbed his life of anything. The biographers and historians can >write to their heart's content about him and if you happen to be >someone who has a strong interest in Oscar Wilde, then their writings >will hopefully be illuminating. I don't see that an artist's historical >significance bears on his art. Is a landscape by Adolf Hitler any >more or less a work of art because it's Adolf's handiwork? I think you misunderstand me. I meant that some artists, I think, are more important than their work. What Wilde stood for, his wit, his style, the very image of Wilde in that place and time, the very image of Wilde today, is more significant to Western History than any of his plays or poems. Which are all terribly witty and very "well made," but if they would have been the work of a quiet hermit, for instance, there wouldn't be a Wilde Mythology. In fact, I think the best writing Wilde ever did was in the *prologue* to "Dorian Gray." I am not saying that his life should affect your reading of his work. I am saying rather that Wilde is more important because he was Oscar Wilde than as the author of "Ballad of Reading Gaol." Byroin is another one -- really, I don't think he is as good as Shelley or Keats; but he was Lord Byron, and he embodied the Romantic Ideal. Even today some people will tell you that Byron is their favorite poet, and they've never even read 99% of his work. It's the ideal. >You're right; it's his devotees I am annoyed with. Heh heh . . . like Mark Gloster and myself? >I take it all very personally; it's the way I apprehend all art. I >open my senses to it and pray a clear strong signal comes through >on my esthetic antenna. When all I hear is a raspberry I take it >personally. OK, fair enough! >> I don't think Cage wanted you personally to give a shit about >> anything. No one is forcing you to be challenged; I am sure you can >> catch a Brahms festival easily enough. > >oof. Sorry . . . Palestrina? Dowland? ;-) >Well you're pretty accommodating then. I read about a year ago of some >artist (French? Italian?) who I think had died recently - this is all >very hazy - and among the artist's product were individually signed, >sealed cans of his shit. The article said they were auctioned. That >pretty much lays it out, right? You can view that as an invitation to >consider your perceptions about art, but to me it looks like you're >being played the fool. And if you say "no, it's both" or "that's the >point", I'll just nod agreeably. Well, it is an invitation to challenge my perceptions about art. They are challenged, and I think he's fucking off his bloody rocker if I'm going to pay for a can of his shit! But I will say this . . . the cult of celebrity is so entrenched in us . . . would I pay even ten dollars for a can of anyone's shit? I'd *like* to say no, but. . . . Some art can be mean or instructive. >At the risk of trivializing your point, I'll try an analogy: Are you >saying that punk music was an important statement that needed to be >made at the time to free popular music from the straitjacket of 70's >corporate rock? If so, I would say that the historians have lots of >hard evidence of what punk succeeded and failed at and who knows, >maybe what punk rock did was even important. But it doesn't make the >music sound any better. Hey, hey hey! I happened to love punk rock! But not as much as Yes, King Crimson, Floyd, and some of the groups they were reacting against. And without Punk, would we have Goth? The Egyptians and the Smiths? Nirvana? (I realize that some of that may not be a good thing to you.) >"My beloved Beethoven and Wagner." I couldn't have said it better. LVB's >as good as it got, for me. I miss him. Well, I think Beethoven was the best, but there can never ever be another Beethoven! He was poised at the right time and place, and his vision changed the world. One of the reasons I dislike Brahms is because I think he looked too much to the past. But then there was Wagner, and Stravinksy, and Schoenberg, and Reich and Glass, and . . . who is next? >There are more voices at the table but they aren't speaking the same >language. That's a fairly adverse statement to make! "They are not like us! They disagree with us, so there must be something fundamentally wrong . . . surely their opinion can't be worth something! This is a whole 'nother language, man!" See what I mean? >You didn't end there, did you? No, I ended with a sig file -- which are randomly assigned by my computer. Heh heh -- I do admit it was a fairly provocative sig file to have been pasted on, though! >The Fisherman Well, would you believe Yeats is my favorite poet? (Mmm . . . maybe Neruda. I go back and forth.) But Yeats . . . well, he was a bit of a cranky fellow who longed for a more simpler time, heh heh. . . . - --Quail "I have met you too late. You're too old for me to help you." - --A young Joyce to the 37 year-old Yeats "Such a colossal self-conceit with such a Lilliputian literary genius I never saw combined in one person." - --W. B. Yeats (A remark about Joyce made in 1902.) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 09:48:08 -0700 From: Michael Brage Subject: Trade??? Fegs, I recently burned a CD of some Robyn stuff. It includes: From Largo, 1/9/98 Silver Dagger All that money wants Oh Yeah The yellow snake Madonna of the Wasps Sister ray Sweet Jane Kershaw Radios sessions 1/6/97 Let's go thundering Where do you go when you die I saw Nick Drake It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to die KCRW radio 1993 Clear spot The kind of guy 11/15/97 Largo Nietzche's way We are the Underneath Knitting factory 3/14/97 Some kind of love Veg. and Dimes A & M covers tape two songs (I'm not sure of the song titles) The sound is good to excellent overall. If anyone wants a copy, I'm happy to trade. If you just want a copy, send me a blank CD with postage and I'll send one out. Contact me off list for arrangements. Michael ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 13:23:30 EDT From: DDerosa5@aol.com Subject: My art is better than your art, Renaissance notwithstanding In the long debate, the thread of which I lost so far back in quotations that I don't feel like looking for it, someone offered a commonplace LCD argument, to wit: people born in one era have no greater chance, *biologically*, of being geniuses than people born in some other era. I just thought I'd weigh in and stir some shit. Don't feel so complacent that people are the same, biologically, throughout time. Some very convincing scientific research has shown that in the modern era, persistent chemical contamination from sources such as PCBs in fish, dioxin in beef, etc, can interfere with hormone development and usage. You may have heard about the "sex hormone" debates, people asking if sperm counts are falling (yes, but not uniformly), if chemicals are making breasts bigger, penises smaller, hermaphrodism more likely, etc. etc. But, that tabloid angle aside, some of the most interesting research has been on IQ. Women who ate fish from the Great Lakes regularly (with all its attendant PCB contamination) had babies with slightly smaller heads, who learned slower, and have now been found to have, on average, IQs six points smaller than a comparable cohort whose mommies were fishaphobes. What does that mean? Six points of IQ is irrelevant for an individual, but very important for a society. If all our IQs went down six points, thanks to the famous "bell curve", we would lose half our genius group (IQ over 150, I think?), and double our remedial reading classes and Rush Limbaugh fans. I know some of what your gonna respond-- IQ just says how good you are at tests, (originally, whether you were officer material in the French Army), and what does that have to do with art? Maybe very little, and I think art geniuses may be somewhat differently wired than say physics geniuses or cooking geniuses. Howard Gardner and others talk about different scales of intelligence, and who knows, chemical warfare may affect all of them differently. (Given the 70,000 chemicals in widespread usage now, not to mention radionuclides, genetic engineered foodstuffs, and the complicating effects of a distractionary culture, don't look for me to design the definitive research.) In any case, we may well be getting stupider than our forefathers (and foremothers), and Uncle Vonnegut might even say that's a good thing (unless we forget how to keep up our nuclear waste dumps). Only then, perhaps, can we get art back to where it's supposed to be: in the realm of religion and transcendent beauty. And, as Robyn has put it, clubbing each other over the head with clubs, somewhere off the coast of Wight. dave feeling "chip chip chipper" today. ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V8 #316 *******************************